Merlin, Inc. has announced Merlin Pilot for Commercial Cargo, which seeks to implement the company’s aircraft-agnostic AI-powered autonomy core into commercial transport – starting with cargo aircraft.
Part of Condor, Merlin’s new product range for large, multi-crew aircraft; the Merlin Pilot autonomy core is planned to be applied across both civil and military platforms, from Part 25 aircraft to military transports such as the C-130J.
Merlin Pilot will work alongside pilots in real-time in order to extend crew capabilities, as well as offer operation scaling beyond limits of a more traditional model.
It is capable of integrating into both existing and new cargo aircraft, and has been designed to provide operators with a more practical pathway to autonomy.
Having logged hundreds of flights across multiple aircraft platforms; Merlin Pilot is built to manage systems, monitor the environment and handle communications, and Merlin believes that by bringing these capabilities to commercial cargo operations it will be capable of enhancing both safety and operational performance across the sector.
The same system is currently being tested under contract with the US Special Operations Command (USSOCOM), where it is now advancing through an airworthiness process on the C-130J following a completion of the Preliminary Design Review (PDR) in March of this year, progressing efforts toward its eventual integration and flight testing.
Matt George, CEO and Founder of Merlin, said:The pilot shortage is structurally impacting operators and comes at a time when the conversion market is at record volume. The window to integrate autonomy, both during the Passenger-to-Freighter (P2F) conversion and in aircraft being currently built, is open, making this a particularly pivotal moment.
Condor represents our approach to scaling autonomy across large, multi-crew aircraft, with the Merlin Pilot at its core. It’s being built to certify, advancing on real military aircraft with real regulators, and is designed to integrate into the aircraft operators already own. That’s what we’re building for commercial cargo.
